You might well recall the basic elements of the salacious scandal that toppled Jerry Falwell Jr.’s reign as arguably the most powerful evangelical in the country, with Falwell and his wife Becki getting involved in some sort of ongoing “throuple” relationship with a Miami pool boy. But as we’re reminded in the wildly entertaining Hulu documentary “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty,” there was a whole lot more to the story.
The skilled and versatile veteran director Billy Corben is a native of South Florida and he has consistently mined his home state for fast-paced, visually “popping” films that often play like non-fiction versions of Scorsese’s work, from the “Cocaine Cowboys” docs to “The U” and “The U Part 2” on ESPN to last year’s “537 Votes,” which revisited the 2000 U.S. president election in Florida. With “God Forbid,” Corben serves up a neon potpourri of slick visuals, quick cuts, clever re-creation techniques, needle drops such as “Jesus Piece” by The Game, the use of archival footage and sit-down interviews to tell the incredible but true story of one of the most stunning sex/religious/political scandals in of this century. (And let’s face it, that’s saying a lot.)
“God Forbid” kicks off in March of 2012 and the party scene at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach, where one Giancarlo Granda, just 20 years old, was working as a pool attendant when he saw a woman in her 40s not only giving him the eye but snapping pictures of him on her cell phone. “She was attractive, you know, she was a cougar,” says Granda, who comes across as mostly empathetic albeit naïve in the extensive interview sessions featured in the doc. “She tells me, ‘Don’t waste your time with the younger ones, they don’t know what they’re doing.’ … She makes a proposition, ‘You wanna go back to my hotel room?’ ”
At that point, Giancarlo Granda didn’t know the woman propositioning him was Becki Falwell, the wife of Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., nor did he know his trysts with Becki would often entail Falwell sitting in a corner of the room, observing and, well, let’s just say actively observing. (The Falwells have denied Jerry was ever present during the trysts between Becki and Granda.) He couldn’t have known the bizarre threesome of sorts would last for some seven years, would afford him some too-good-to-be-true business opportunities, would turn ever darker (and sadder), and would eventually explode into a full-blown, front-page scandal that would lead to the downfall of the Falwells.
(As Granda says at the outset of the film, “If I would have known that accepting this woman’s invitation to go back to her hotel room would have led to a scandal involving the president of the largest Christian university in the world and the president of the United States, I would have walked away and just enjoyed my private life.”)
At that point “God Forbid” takes a step back and efficiently chronicles the rise of the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., the doom-and-gloom, hardcore conservative who founded the Moral Majority and Liberty University and used TV as the pulpit to become world-famous. After Falwell’s death in 2007, his son Jerry Jr. inherited the mantle — but Junior was more interested in the business side of the empire and enjoying a lifestyle with Becki that appeared to be more “The White Lotus” than conservative Christian.
Even as Liberty University was thriving in Lynchburg, Jerry and Becki were often partying in Miami — having lavish dinners, downing drinks and continuing to see Granda, even bringing him in on a seven-figure business deal to run a hostel in Miami, while practically making him part of the family.
Corben expertly recounts the almost unbelievable story of how Granda found himself flying on private jets, sitting with the Falwells’ children at Liberty University events, meeting presidential hopeful Donald Trump (who was courting the Falwell endorsement), etc., etc. Granda eventually wanted out of the personal side of the relationship, much to the dismay of Becki, who according to Granda was borderline obsessed with him. Making matters much more complicated, some members of the media were becoming aware of paperwork, personal photos and other evidence of the unusual connection between the Falwells and a former pool attendant.
In August of 2020, Aram Roston of Reuters delivered the full bombshell, complete with an interview with Granda. Soon afterward, Falwell resigned as head of Liberty University. “God Forbid” winds up on a Big Picture note, tying extreme evangelical fervor to some of society’s biggest ongoing problems. Is that a reach? Maybe. Maybe not.
